


Civic Duty

by lil_1337



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-13
Updated: 2007-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-06 22:53:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lil_1337/pseuds/lil_1337
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the <a href="http://gw500.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://gw500.livejournal.com/"><b>gw500</b></a> prompt vow</p>
            </blockquote>





	Civic Duty

"Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Quatre Winner, do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

Quatre raised his hand and repeated the words with the seriousness they warranted. When directed to, he settled himself in the witness box, his features carefully schooled into a calm, businesslike mask. He let his gaze wander a bit, flicking over the other pilots sitting in the front row to await their turn on the stand, past the defendant who glared back in response, to settle on each member of the jury in turn.

They were equally split in gender with a wide range in age and ethnicity. It pleased him to see that the group was alert and focused on the proceedings. Their faces mirrored his in seriousness and intensity. A man's freedom, and possibly his life, hung in the balance and it was crucial that they realized this was not a game or a momentary distraction from their day-to-day lives. The job laid out before them might not be one they relished but it was one of the utmost importance.

He'd fought for this, this often annoying and often agonizingly slow process. The right to a trial by jury. The right to be represented by a court appointed attorney if it was deemed necessary. Each step was something that was to be valued and held dear because of the rights and freedoms it represented.

He scanned the room again wondering how many of the people there had lost a friend or a family member in war. Did they appreciate the sacrifices made? All the lives lost and the walking dead who had paid for them with their blood and the blood of others. They had come so close to losing it all more than once, to accepting tyranny in the guise of peace. It was important to remain aware and to guard fiercely what they had won from anyone who threatened to take it away.

There was no doubt in his mind where his loyalties lay. He'd vowed to fight for the colonies and that had not changed. Instead it had expanded to include the Earth and possibly Mars, depending on the success of the terra-forming project currently underway there. All of humanity deserved a right to live in peace and be free, himself included.

However, if he had to choose again, and that day might yet come his choice would not waiver from the one he had made before. He would fight. Of the two options, peace or freedom, freedom held the higher value, for without it there would never be true peace, just times when the unrest was held in check. For that he would endure pointless questions put to him by an overpaid stuffed shirt of a lawyer looking to get his client off on a technicality because a single right or freedom taken from one person equated to the beginning of the loss for all.


End file.
